Music Review: Antonymes – The License to Interpret Dreams

Antonymes (Ian M. Hazeldine) is a designer, photographer, and conceptualist making music from the wilds of North Wales. His experience in musical development, complimented with minimal use of computer enhancement, creates an audio “space” where notes and intention merge, until a shape appears.

The debut of the mini-album Beauty Becomes the Enemy of the Future was first released in 2009 and its follow-up 31: Before the Light Fails was released in 2010. Various pieces by Antonymes have appeared on compilations produced by labels Soundcolours, Dezordr, Cathedral Transmissions and Audio Gourmet.

The License to Interpret Dreams was released on April 21, 2011 through Hidden Shoal Recordings and is distributed via n5Mailorder. Hidden Shoal Recordings is an Australia-based independent music label that has earned a reputation for releasing exciting and engaging new, independent music that is not bound by genre or style. HSR has been chosen as one of Textura magazine’s favorite labels and has been dubbed “this generation’s 4AD” by prominent New York radio host DJ Mojo.

The License to Interpret Dreams is rich in ambient textures and tonal arrangements that are both beautiful and haunting. If you close your eyes you can see a landscape that pulses with color and life that cannot be seen with the human eye. It’s “minimalist” concepts and use of distant sounds, the rush of waves and of nature are enticing and play games with the mind as one seeks out to hear every note.

This album is creative; the artist has in layers of sound, created a whole world, teaming with life, in which we the listener can dive into and bask in its waters. It is brilliant and bold; its sound is both complex and alluring, bringing you deeper and deeper into its ever folding soundscape.

My favorite pieces on this album are “Endlessly,”“On Approaching the Strange Museum” and “A Light from the Heavens.”

I am impressed by the audio dreamscape created by Ian M. Hazeldine and I recommend this album to the listener whom wishes, if only for a moment, to be taken away unto those mystical places that exist in the realm of the ether, where the wild is, where dreams exist as a reality.

The site for Hidden Shoal Recordings is music.hiddenshoal.com, where you can stream audio samples of the album, as well as various artists under the Hidden Shoal Label. The online store is agora.hiddenshoal.com and the artist’s web site is antonymes.co.uk, where you can find out more information about the artist, the albums and the rich soundscape that is The License to Interpret Dreams.

About Joseph Timmons

Writer, Artist and Musician living in California. I like Music, all Music and I have a fondness for the arts. I will write about anything, but I am most prolific when it comes to Music and the Entertainment Arts. I consider myself an admirer of Fashion and Social Events. When out and about, look around, I may be there - I travel around and get in to every party !